When getting a state pistol permit, safety comes first

I’m getting a pistol permit. It’s a job assignment, like covering a house fire or a murder trial. My job is to complete all the requirements to qualify for the permit that would let me buy and carry handguns in Connecticut, and to write about my experiences. ...

It’s a job assignment, like covering a house fire or a murder trial. My job is to complete all the requirements to qualify for the permit that would let me buy and carry handguns in Connecticut, and to write about my experiences.

The story isn’t intended to make any political points about gun control. It’s to show what I and other people have to do to follow the state’s gun laws. Readers can decide for themselves if those laws are too strict or not strict enough.

This permit would give me the right to buy and to carry a handgun for five years. To get one, I and everybody else first have to get a 60-day local permit. If I wanted to buy a handgun but not carry it loaded outside my house, I don’t need the local permit, but I still have to meet the same state permit rules.

The state says I must be 21 and a legal resident in the United States. I can’t be a convicted felon or convicted of 11 misdemeanors involving violence or some illegal drugs. I can’t have been convicted of a serious juvenile offense. These are lifetime bans. Also, there’s a 20-year ban upon being discharged from custody after having been found not guilty of a crime based on the insanity defense, and a one-year ban upon being discharged from a psychiatric hospital. I can’t have a restraining or protective order against me based on me using or threatening violence, or an order seizing my firearms.

None of these rules disqualify me, thankfully. So a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Norwich Police Department and asked for an application.

Within a few seconds, I got a packet of material consisting of a four-page state pistol permit application form, a separate page of local instructions, a card where my fingerprints will go and a list containing the names and phone numbers of six local NRA pistol permit instructors.

The instructions say to get the local permit, I have to do the following:

Fill out the state form and get it notarized.

Get a letter or certificate from a “qualified instructor or gun club officer” saying I’m competent with a handgun.

Get proof of residency, such as a utility bill.

Get a copy of my birth certificate.

Get fingerprinted by a Norwich police officer.

Pay fees for federal and state background checks, the fingerprinting and both permits themselves.

The state permit application is intrusive. In addition to the usual, name, address, date of birth and so on, I have to list my addresses and employers for the past seven years. I also have to answer whether I’ve ever been arrested for anything (I haven’t).

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The next step is to learn about handguns. I have never owned a gun of any kind and never had to clean one or think about storing one safely. I have never gone hunting or wanted to. I never worried about protection enough to go through the effort and expense of getting a gun.

I have fired guns at targets a few times many years ago. My father apparently did a lot of target shooting before he got married, and, to share his liking for the sport, he took my brothers and me shooting with his guns at the time — a .22 caliber rifle and .38 caliber revolver — when we were teens. I enjoyed myself, but I wasn’t a good shot and never felt strongly about pursuing the hobby. (One expensive pastime I’m mediocre at – golf – is enough.)

The law says I have to take the NRA’s Basic Pistol Course, and it must include firing a revolver or semiautomatic pistol on a firing range. According to the NRA, the course “teaches the basic knowledge, skills, and attitude for owning and operating a pistol safely.”

Using the list provided by the Norwich police, I got in touch with Paul Scungio. He said he has been a firearms instructor for 34 years, first with the Army, then with the Coast Guard, and he’s been working for the NRA for more than 30 years, as well.

He said he teaches the course as if everybody’s a novice, no matter what they know or think they know already. I said that’s a good thing for me.

When I told him I’m a reporter and I was going to be writing about him and the course, he was hesitant. It took several minutes to get him to agree.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but part of my trouble stemmed from a misunderstanding. Scungio told me later that after a lifetime of shooting — he’s over 70 — he has trouble hearing what people say over the telephone. So when I said my name was John Barry and I was with The Bulletin, he thought I said my name was John Way, who writes a weekly column for the opinion page and in a recent column came out strongly in favor of gun control and harshly against the NRA.

The NRA instructor is a strong opponent of gun control — except he favors background checks — and he’s pretty protective of the image of target shooting. I guess he must have worried about what kind of slanted story I would write, but after thinking it over awhile, he generously agreed to take me on as a student.

We first arranged for me to take the course on Feb. 9, but that turned out to be the Saturday of the big snowstorm, and I ended up taking the course on Feb. 17, eight days later. It was held at the Pachaug Outdoor Club in Griswold.

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I took the course with one other student, a woman who didsn’t want me to use her name. Two other women, a mother and daughter, were supposed to take the course, too, but they canceled because of the weather.

Paul taught the course with his son, Brian Scungio, who is also an NRA instructor. For the classroom part of the course, we sat around a table where five different handguns were laid out.

The course covered the basics of being a safe and responsible gun owner as well as shooting at a target with a handgun. There was no test. Rather, Paul and Brian went over the different subjects until we indicated we understood them.

Topics included:

Gun safety, such as being careful not to point it at anyone, always making sure it really isn’t loaded and never aiming and shooting above the horizon, because bullets can end up landing several miles away.

Wearing eye and hearing protection when shooting.

Loading handguns and the different types of ammunition.

Cleaning handguns.

Learning about the two types of handguns, revolvers and semiautomatic pistols, and how they work.

What to do if a gun doesn’t fire when you pull the trigger.

Never firing a gun when you’ve been drinking alcohol or using drugs, including such items as allergy medication.

Storing guns in your home so children don’t accidentally shoot them or they don’t accidentally go off in a fire.

Paul reviewed the state’s gun laws. He said, even though the pistol permit isn’t specific about it, we should carry our pistols concealed under our clothes instead of openly. We also obviously should avoid churches, schools, other government buildings and the like. Guns also are banned anywhere alcohol is consumed.

In a car, we are allowed to carry a loaded gun on our body, but we’re not allowed to have it anywhere else within reach, such as on the seat next to us.

A Connecticut pistol permit isn’t accepted in most states near us, so we would have to leave our guns at home unless they’re empty, in a case and stored in the car’s trunk or somewhere else not readily available, and we’re going to be using them for lawful purposes.

Finally, Paul advised us, when we get a gun, before loading it, read its manual and practice using it with our eyes closed until we can do it without fumbling.

After all that, we got some basic instructions in shooting, then went to the club’s gun range and fired at paper targets set up 50 feet away.

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We fired two guns, a .22-caliber revolver and a .22-caliber semiautomatic. I fired six shots at a time, then reloaded. I did this three or four times with each gun. I didn’t fire rapidly, which I easily could have done, but aimed each shot as carefully as I could. I wore earphones and safety glasses, which are required by the range’s rules.

Both guns were easy to shoot and had no recoil. They didn’t weigh very much, and their noise was muffled by the earphones. Small as they were, I did feel a sense of power when I fired. But mostly I worried about all the new rules I had just learned – where to place my hands, where to point and not point the guns, taking a breath and firing just after exhaling.

I was a little more accurate with the revolver, which I used first, but that was probably luck. About two-thirds of my shots hit somewhere on the target, and three shots went into the 3-inch diameter bull’s-eye.

But it didn’t matter, because the test wasn’t in marksmanship, but in safety on the range. After we finished shooting, Paul signed letters saying I and my fellow student had completed the course and signed my state application. I gave him $100, payable as a donation to the Pachaug Outdoor Club.

The safety course took a day. I enjoyed meeting the Scungio father and son and shooting on the range, and as a novice around guns, I found the instruction worthwhile. I think most people applying for a permit would, too.

Coming soon: The next step is getting all the paperwork together and going to the Norwich police station to get fingerprinted in preparation for background checks. John Barry’s story about that will appear on the Web Monday night and in Tuesday's print edition.